Director General Grossi said “there is an urgent need for interim measures to prevent a nuclear accident arising from physical damage caused by military means. This can be achieved by the immediate establishment of a nuclear safety and security protection zone.”

Naftogaz and Gazprom signed in December 2019 a gas transit agreement under ship-or-pay terms, meaning Gazprom is obliged to pay for transit whether it uses it or not.

In the wake of its decision in March to end all nuclear fuel purchases from Russia, Energoatom has agreed to increase the supply of Westinghouse nuclear fuel for all Ukrainian NPPs including those already operating and those planned.

The nuclear power plant - the largest in Europe - is still being operated by its Ukrainian staff, but has been under the control of Russian military forces since the start of March.

In its daily update on Monday, Energoatom said that all the country's nuclear power plants continued to operate within safe limits.

Requests via the Velke Kapusany border point in Slovakia were around 512,056 megawatt hours (MWh) per day, down from 856,922 MWh per day earlier on Thursday, data from Slovakian operator TSO Eustream showed.

Likhachev and Grossi “paid particular attention to the state of affairs at the Zaporozhye NPP, including taking into account the IAEA Director General’s intention to organise a technical mission of the IAEA specialists to this NPP”. Likhachev “stressed ensuring safe operation of nuclear installations in the broadest sense possible was an absolute priority for the Russian side and for the Russian nuclear industry”.

The IAEA will continue to support Ukraine in ensuring the safety and security of its nuclear sites, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi told Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky this evening during a meeting in Kyiv.

Shipments of Russian gas via the Ukrainian network have continued unaffected since Moscow's invasion on Feb. 24.

Ukraine informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) today that there had been no significant new developments related to nuclear safety and security over the past 24 hours, Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said.